The singer was a Spanish nobleman who had lost a fortune at Monte Carlo the night before, and had been brought here bound hand and foot at early morning. He had tried to kill himself, and now he imagined himself a famous singer, and that the barred colonnade was the stage of the Grand Opéra at Paris.
“He’ll soon be all right again,” said the porter with a careless shrug; “those violent cases mend quickly.”
“But he won’t get his money back again, poor devil,” said one of the loiterers, a flyman whose vehicle was standing by the wall, waiting for a customer. “Hard to recover his senses and find himself without a soul.”
“O, he has rich friends, no doubt. Look at his white kid gloves. He is young and handsome, and he has a splendid voice. Somebody will take care of him. Do you see that old woman sitting over there in the garden? You would not think there was anything amiss with her, would you? No more there is, only she thinks she is the Blessed Virgin. She has been here five-and-thirty years. Nobody pities her—nobody inquires about her. My father remembers her when she was a handsome young woman at a flower-shop on the Quai Massena, one of the merriest girls in Nice. Somebody told her she was neglecting her soul and going to hell. This set her thinking too much. She used to be at the Cathedral all day, and at confession as often as the priest would hear her. She neglected her shop, and quarrelled with her mother and sisters. She said she had a vocation; and then one fine day she walked to the Cathedral in a white veil, with a bunch of lilies in her hand, and she told all the people she met that they ought to kneel before her and make the sign of the cross, for she was the Mother of God. Three days afterwards her people brought her here. She would neither eat nor drink, and she never closed her eyes, or left off talking about her glorious mission, which was to work the redemption of all the women upon earth.”
“Drive on to the doctor’s house,” Mildred said presently; and the fly went on a few hundred yards, and then drew up at the door of a private house, which marked the boundary of the asylum garden.
Mrs. Greswold had inquired the name of the doctor of longest experience in the asylum, and she had been referred to Monsieur Leroy, the inhabitant of this house, where the flyman informed her some of the more wealthy patients were lodged. She had come prepared with a little note requesting the favour of an interview, and enclosing her card, with the address of Enderby Manor as well as her hotel in Nice. The English manor and the Hôtel Westminster indicated at least respectability in the applicant; and Monsieur Leroy’s reception was both prompt and courteous.
He was a clever-looking man, about sixty years of age, with a fine benevolent head, and an attentive eye, as of one always on the alert. He had spent five-and-thirty of his sixty years in the society of the deranged, and had devoted all his intellectual power to the study of mental disease.
After briefest preliminary courtesies, Mildred explained the purpose of her visit.
“I am anxious to learn anything you can tell me about a patient who was under your care—or, at least, in this establishment—seventeen years ago, and in whom I am deeply interested,” she said.
“Seventeen years is a long time, madame, but I have a good memory, and I keep notes of all my cases. I may be able to satisfy your curiosity in some measure. What was the name of this patient?”